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Cory Booker Demands that congress fund Israel in Wake of Attacks from Palestine - October 2023
(www.booker.senate.gov)
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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United States | News & Politics
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LoL, you think their vote either way is how they would make a difference. I too would not vote for anyone who is pro-genocide. What a shit voting system. Democracy my arse.
Muh democracy!
The US has never had genuine democracy. The US has political theater. Trump in power is not changing that fundamental truth, the US public has never had real democratic control to begin with.
While I do absolutely agree, the commenters here not marshalling every effort and yes, even compromising on issues, to get the lesser of two evils elected I can't help but see as a poorly thought out excuse. Have your disagreement over policy AFTER you prevent the catastrophe.
The US had Turbo racist Hitler Satan running a platform of oppression to supplement and fund oligarch dictator fascism for the foreseeable never ending infinite term regime and some didn't vote for the literal only option to stop that happening because of some infantile dream that dissenting 3rd candidate voices will matter to either side that has and always will govern. I find the moral grandstanding utterly absurd in the context of a 2 outcome race, yet here we are.
They do have faux-democracy, they do have the illusion of representation, they are at the mercy of lobbyists and corporate corruption and bribery, but only one of the two political choices has ever taken those discussions and attempted improvements. Only one side was ever trying to regulate and debate these things, but go and see where naive optimism gets you. You're all planning where to put your beach towels in front of a tsunami.
The thing is, the DNC is not trying to stop any of that. It's all theater, the opposition they put on display is theatrical. Nobody seriously believed a third party would win, the goal is to encourage more people to abandon an electotalist approach to political activism and adopt a more millitant, organizational approach, which has a far better track record at actually influencing policy in a major way.
I hope I see an America that does gain enough awareness to mobilize and dismantle the systemic oppression you're talking about. I, personally, would have voted in the party that doesn't disappear journalists and critics, burns books and refutes facts, I would have rather taken up arms against a politician I could convince of right and wrong than a unified front devoted to evil, but that's my heady optimism getting in the way.
A friend of mine said of the Bush administration that it "had to happen" to show Americans how bad it gets when you let these snakes get power, and no one would vote Republican again after they witnessed the shitshow in action. I think they were optimistic too.
I think the biggest divide between our POVs is that the DNC definitely does all of the things you accuse them of not doing. We cannot simply talk to the DNC and convince them to do the right thing, they aren't incompetent but well-meaning, but a different wing of the same brutally oppressive Empire.
If I am correct in my analysis there, we must do what we can to adapt our strategy and find solutions that work.
I can see where you're coming from, I'll try to summarise with metaphor and will likely sound asinine but here goes:
If I'm a hitchhiker and I see a suspicious car pull over and offer me a ride, even in the wrong direction, I'm going to take it over the driver that stops, gets out with a chainsaw and runs towards me screaming "go back to your own country", where you're focusing on how this first option is a very bad option. I'm not in disagreement that it's a bad option. It is most definitely a broken, non-functional option. It is however not the lunatic with a chainsaw, which I take as an incredible positive argument for it.
I don't need a metaphor to understand your point, I've heard the argument before. My point is that if we view the historical response to labor organization, both drivers are chainsaw wielding murderers, just one of them puts on a more polite face. The task is the same regardless, it is not any easier if the murderer is more polite about the slaughter if the slaughter is the same.
I understand your point, sorry for a belaboured metaphor, it just helps me think.
Here's my counterpoint: If both options are the same outcome then what is there? Wait for violent, government-toppling civil war before anything changes? If it is institutionalized oppression, both-sides etc, then I can only assume you don't see the current administration as any different to the previous one, or any future DNC? If you think Biden was equivalent to Trump in terms of 'just a nice face on a chainsaw wielding madman', then you have no change in political stance now that Trump is in power and reshaping the constitution to allow indefinite rule? Both sides bad means it hasn't become worse since the party change, as it was always going to be this bad no matter who won?
Follow the logic, I think it sounds grossly myopic.
My solution is labor organization and eventually revolution, I'm a Communist. The Working Class should form its own party and build it up, like PSL, rather than rely on bourgeois parties that serve the same interests.
Trump and Biden/Harris both serve the same ruling class. Nothing really happens without the genuine approval of that class, opposition from the DNC towards the GOP is theatrical in nature and not material. The conditions change with time, but the conditions don't change as much with parties as they do as broader trends.
The Democrats absolutely do those things, just look at Gaza.
So not the Democrats
I don't know how many times I can restate that the "both sides bad" argument does not make sense to anti-Trump sentiment. Yes the Democrats are shitty, yes they do bad things, but in a choice between that and exactly that but 10x worse I literally cannot wrap my head around this smug superiority of not-ascribing to either side trolling. You do know that undermining Democrats is getting Republicans more power and enacting more of the things you're against?
Ok. What I said is still true though.
You can't vote against somebody in the US. You can only vote for people.
A vote of "no confidence" would be great, though; the idea being that if "no confidence" won, they'd have to re-run the election with all new candidates!
That's the essence of proportional representation, you get to say a quantifiable amount of approval. However, in a two party 'someone -will- win' type system, voting for one party is directly equivalent to voting against the other. Abstaining from voting has absolutely no effect (if 98% of voters abstained, the remaining 2% would still decide the leader)
I voted for an anti-genocide candidate: Jill Stein.
The biggest threat to democracy, by far, would have been Democrats -- the party you view as the good guys! -- doing a genocide and not even suffering an electoral setback. If you can do the literal worst thing humans can do to each other free of consequences, whatever you government have isn't worth supporting, regardless of what you call it.
Aww, my democracy is running fine bud, cause I'm not an Americunt. Besides, Donnie is not even the biggest threat to the US democracy. Their shitty two party system with both parties openly bought and paid for by oligarchs is a much more insidious threat.
Agreed! Not singling you at all, I made a comment that intended to be more a generalised dismay at the mindset of not voting for the opposition to facism because of high ground morality.
I agree on two party systems being more insidious against true democracy, but even so having half a country agree to such tyranny isn't something democratic processes can fix, only voter mobilization.
Opposition to fascism was not on the ballot. The party doing a genocide abroad is not anti-fascist, it's fascism farther away.
Nazis aren't the biggest threat to democracy? Cool story, bro
The Democrats were the ones doing a genocide -- that's the most direct comparison to Nazis.
Trump also being a Nazi does not excuse Democrats. It was an election between Himmler and Hitler, and you're upset some people didn't vote for either.
No, they aren't. Neolibs are far more of a threat. Remember what happened to the nazis last time? The Red Army destroyed them. But the neolibs are still destroying democracy everywhere in the world.